World's End
by Littleotter73
Summary: After an apocalypse, sometimes what a Watcher really needs is a few drinks with an old friend.


**Title:** World's End

 **Author:** littleotter73

 **Rating:** FRT

 **Characters:** Giles, Ethan

 **Summary:** After an apocalypse, sometimes what a Watcher really needs is a few drinks with an old friend.

 **Setting:** A few months post Chosen (no comics)

 **Beta:** foreverbooks

 **Disclaimer:** For fun, not profit

 **A/N:** Written for Summer of Giles 2016 over on Livejournal. Rebelxxwaltz and I each wrote a story to the prompt: Post Series, Giles and Ethan meet at a pub. Which path will their friendship take in the aftermath the apocalypse? The pub must be the World's End in Camden where rebelxxwaltz, il_mio_capitano, and I met up for our London 2012 adventures. Oh, and Ethan has to have a goatee. Both have the same title. Don't forget to check out her fic as well. :)

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World's End

He knows the corner banquette is the most private in the pub, but the garish midday light shining through the giant window would expose Giles too much to the outside world. It is one thing to walk amongst the crowd in anonymity, but completely another to sit in front of a window on display to the world. Tumbler of scotch in hand, he eschews the table in favour of something along the far wall away from the glare of the public, if not the clientele, to sit down and wait.

It's odd, he rarely frequents pubs during the day. There is something about the detached intimacy that comes with patronising a pub at night: the sharing of a drink and connecting with humanity without committing to more than a conversation or two. The familiarity of cigarette smoke, the well worn wood and upholstery, the warm glow of light reflecting off the polished brass, all helping to blur the edges of reality, have always put Rupert Giles at ease - a haven in his chaotic world.

But he can't hide any longer. The world is different… it makes sense, but it doesn't, and somehow he can't wrap his head around it. And perhaps he is too old and set in his ways to navigate the changes. It's summer, but everything seems so cold.

His friends tell him he's shell shocked, that it's only natural after everything that has happened, his trauma different from that of the rest of the gang's. That he needs to process the loss of the Council - something that has defined his life since he was ten. No, before then. Since birth. Bred to be a Watcher. He needs to process the loss of friends and extended family. To mourn them and the Potentials and Slayers - the ones he had rescued - that hadn't made it out of Sunnydale.

And if he is honest, it goes back further. To Buffy's sacrifice. To the loss of their connection, their friendship. They still argue, unable to find their footing with one another despite their reconciliation at the last hour on the eve of the battle with the First.

He takes another sip of the amber liquid to ward off the cold and wonders if he will ever feel warm again.

"Scotch before noon? Tsk tsk, Ripper! It must be bad."

He lifts his eyes and they soften in relief at the sight of Ethan Rayne standing before him, a little greyer, he supposes, but then so is he. It's a paradox to be sure, but Ethan is there and the tightness in his chest eases.

"You look like shit, old boy. Hang on," Ethan says before he crosses the room to order a drink at the bar.

Giles knows how he looks. He's exhausted, but he doesn't sleep, his nights haunted by the Turok-han and the accusing eyes of the dead as they lie at his feet, his attempts to keep them safe all for naught. But the most disconcerting accusations come from the wide, sylvan eyes of one who still lives… or rather lives again… daring him to challenge her after all his failures.

His glass is nearly empty and he catches Ethan's attention to order him another, but sees that his companion is holding a pint in one hand and a glass of scotch in the other as he makes his way back to the table. Giles will catch the next round. Assuming Ethan doesn't change him into a demon… or poison him and finally put him out of his misery.

"So," Ethan says as he places the glasses on the table and sits down opposite Giles. "To what do I owe this meeting?"

Honestly, Giles doesn't have a clue. Why Ethan? Why not Xander? Or Willow? Or Robson? He knows why not Buffy.

"I don't know," he finally answers with a shrug as he swirls the last of the scotch in the glass. "I'm not sure I like the goatee."

"I didn't grow it for you, Rupert," Ethan answers, sitting back into his chair and crossing his legs. "And at least it's neat. When was the last time you shaved? The rule of stubble is 3 days before it needs a trim."

"Stuff it, Ethan," Giles growls. He needs a haircut too, he doesn't think it's been cut since before he left for Sunnydale before Christmas last year. He hasn't worn it this long since his time running around the more unsavoury parts of London with Ethan and the gang back in the Seventies.

Ethan pulls out his cigarette case and offers one to Giles, who declines, before taking out one for himself and lighting it. He takes a long drag into his lungs and holds it a moment and Giles can feel himself being assessed.

"Are you going to tell me what is going on, or do I need to guess?" Ethan asks, blowing the smoke clear from his lungs.

"You heard about Sunnydale…" Giles begins, but trails off.

"Yes, that made some waves around the supernatural world, to say the least. Been good for business, though. Voids always are." He takes in another lung full and taps the ash into the tray.

Giles looks up from the table, his wide, pale green eyes full of horror and Ethan visibly backs off. "Nothing major, old boy, I assure you, just a bit of mischief here and there. My days of freelancing with the baddies are over."

Huffing in disbelief, Giles mumbles, "That's hard to believe."

"Believe what you like, but it is much easier and, quite frankly, less… dangerous if one answers only to oneself."

"Ah yes, but you never could resist the money-"

"I don't need money, Rupert. My father died not long after I saw you last."

And that pulls Giles up short and makes all the difference in the world. Ethan's father had cut his son out of his life. Thrown him out of the house at sixteen. So, had it been anyone but Ethan, Giles would've scoffed, but Giles knows the deal, and a deep well of sympathy rises through him.

"I-I am sorry. Your dad was…"

"A bastard," Ethan finishes before taking a sip of his ale. His face is a mask, but the telltale hurt shows through his eyes. "Honestly, I am surprised he made it as long as he did, kept alive through sheer spite," Ethan states without much emotion, but the old sly smile returns to his face as does the sarcasm to his tone. "So, imagine it, Rip, I am a proper and upstanding member of society now!"

Raising his tumbler, Giles reaches across the table and taps it against Ethan's pint glass. He knows the pain of losing loved ones all too well, even the complicated ones. There is a comfortable silence between them now, the kind that exists between two people who share the same battle scars, and Giles gets up and heads to the bar for another round. He returns to the table with two pints of ale and a couple packets of cheese and onion crisps.

"They are out of the prawn cocktail," Giles explains as Ethan looks at him as though he's handing him a bag of freeze dried mandrake root, but takes them anyway.

"They'll do," he says, his sigh heavy, the disappointment ringing through. He doesn't comment that his friend has switched to beer, but he takes that as a good sign. "So, do you want to talk about it?"

"I just…" he trails off.

Ethan has seen him like this before, the defeated young man with the underlying rage just waiting to be unleashed. Twenty something years ago, they'd laid a destructive trail across the seedier neighbourhoods of London. Now, that just won't do.

"Let me guess, your Slayer and her friends."

Giles says nothing. Instead he reaches for Ethan's cigarette case and bums a smoke. Mumbling an incantation, he ignites the end and takes a long, satisfying drag into his lungs. He doesn't know how long it's been since he's smoked. Perhaps not since the incident with the cursed candy, but it is a calming comfort in the chaos that is his life at the moment.

"I thought as much. Last time I saw you like this, I turned you into a Fyarl. Served you right too."

The rage rises and Giles' eyes darken with annoyance. "Oh yes. You would've revelled in that irony, wouldn't you? Having my Slayer kill me."

"You were never in danger, Rip. There was a protection spell woven within. Besides, you needed some excitement. I couldn't sit by and allow you to wallow in self-pity alone in your flat," Ethan explains. "Oh, and I didn't particularly enjoy the beating your pet Initiative pal gave me before dumping me off at the city lines."

Giles flicks the ash into the tray and brings the cigarette back up to his lips before inhaling another lungful of smoke. "I would've thought you would've appreciated that. What with your penchant for taking my beatings. Anyway, he was of the mind to incarcerate you. After what you told me about the Initiative, I couldn't let that happen. Not to anyone, least of all you."

"Well, if I am honest, that's why I never came back. I owed you one."

His smile is genuine and Giles accepts it for the peace offering it is.

"So do I need to turn you back into a Fyarl?" Ethan jokes, trying to lighten the mood.

"Perhaps," Giles murmurs as he directs his attention out the window across the room. "I just feel… We saved the world again. And I've been in this fight one way or another for as long as I can remember." He doesn't realise that Ethan hasn't said anything until he notices the silence between them and shakes his head. "I suppose I am just tired…"

"We both know it's more than that."

"It is," Giles admits, picking up his glass and draining half his beer. "Ever since she came back from the dead, we can't seem to find that comfortable place we once had. I thought perhaps after Willow had her apocalypse, but I was unable to come back… and when I did, things seemed to be back on track for a few days, but…"

"Do you have any theories?"

Giles stabs the cigarette into the ashtray and casually blows out the last lungful of smoke. "Besides the fact that we aren't the people that we once were? No. Just look at you and me. After Randall… People change, Ethan. I've changed."

"And circumstances change, old boy. Here we are, having a drink like old mates do."

Giles raises his glass in salute.

"Perhaps you two need some distance, Rupert. Seems to have worked for us."

"Hasn't worked so well for Buffy and me." There, he's finally said her name and it feels good, like lancing an infected wound, the relief palpable as he takes his first full breath in what feels like forever.

"Took us twenty some odd years to get here," Ethan comments with a shrug, finishing his beer. "If we are indeed over the past."

"Are we? You were never the sort to let bygones be bygones."

Ethan picks up his case and pulls out another cigarette, closing it and tapping the tobacco end against the lid. "No, I don't suppose I was." He picks up his lighter before shifting his attention back to Giles. "But as you say, people change."

"Tell me, why did you allow me to thrash you so after your misdeeds in Sunnydale? I know you can hold your own in a fight. You just seemed to allow me to have my way with you."

"Atonement, I suppose," Ethan shrugs. He's known he would have to answer this question some day. "Perhaps it was the only way I could feel anything. I'd lost Randall, then Deirdre and the others ran. We fell out. And, of course, my father didn't welcome me back to the fold like yours did. Chaos… well, that was a temporary plaster placed over a festering wound. So every so often I would turn up in your life, determined to punish you for leaving me behind, but… chaos being what it is, that never quite turned out as I had planned. In the end, I took whatever you dealt out because it was something. The pain was something other than the indescribable void that had taken up residence within my very being."

"And now?"

"There was a bit of a revelation after the Fyarl incident. You didn't lay a finger on me, and you basically let me go. I know that commando took orders from you. It might be melodramatic, but you could very well have sent me to what might have been my death, and you didn't."

"What about the void?"

"Still there, but there are other things to fill it. Less... destructive things."

Nodding, Giles drinks deeply, emptying his glass. He's seen this before. Buffy. Ethan. Two sides of the same coin, he realises, but so similar. Both magnificent, at times tragic and poetic, and beautiful in the destruction of his soul that they leave in their wake. Ethan is the dark, Buffy the light.

"All is forgiven, Ethan," Giles states plainly, "but definitely not forgotten." There is a hint of a threat behind his words.

"No, no, never that," he agrees, a corner of his mouth turned up in amusement. There was a spark of Ripper in there afterall. "Another round?"

Giles shakes his head. "No, best not. I have a meeting to attend later this afternoon. Council rebuilding stuff. Though, god knows why I bother. Buffy only wants me there to agree to whatever she wants. Her rubber stamp of approval, if you will."

"Legitimise her agenda as one of the original Council?"

"Exactly."

"I'd never advocate hitting a lady, Rip, but she needs a good thrashing."

"I'm sure that would go over well," Giles answers sardonically. "Need I remind you she's the Slayer?"

" _A_ Slayer," Ethan reminds.

Shaking his head, Giles adamantly disagrees. "Always the Slayer."

"And always yours," he emphasises before finishing his cigarette.

Giles takes a moment to digest that. He supposes Ethan is right.

"It's mystical, this thing between Watchers and Slayers. I don't know why I have to tell you this, Rupert. All those years of training to be the good and proper Watcher and you seem to think it's a common relationship problem between the two of you, that perhaps she's somehow outgrown you, or that the rift is as wide as the crater Sunnydale left behind. Yes, you will still have to work on rebuilding the trust, the familiarity and move beyond it. But…"

Suddenly hope springs to life in Giles' eyes and he almost laughs. "Helmand, page 94, 'Connection and Recognition: The Bond Between,'" he states, his almost eidetic memory kicking in.

"It's a start," Ethan replies knowingly as he pulls out a coin from his pocket to leave on the table as a tip, but his expression changes as he looks at it. "I suspect the connection between you was severed when she died."

Giles notices the change, but since Ethan didn't switch subjects, he continues with their conversation. "That makes quite a bit of sense, actually."

"Of course it does," Ethan says, shifting in his chair, his brown eyes locked on the coin. "You're just... too close to it all. That, and a bit shell shocked."

"Shell shocked. That's what Willow and Xander have called it as well," Giles states with mild amusement.

Ethan gathers his cigarette case and lighter, his voice now containing the usual disdain that has defined their previous meetings. "Listen, old man, you really do look a right mess. There's a barbershop down the way, get a haircut and a shave before heading back to your lady."

"She's not-"

He hates it, but Ethan knows what he has to do and he suddenly stands up, trying to mask his emotions. "Bugger this!" he declares as a note of despair comes through. He's done enough soul searching, had enough of Rupert and his precious Slayer. But as quickly as the rage comes, it dissipates, and he shakes his head sadly, before placing the coin down on the table. "Not forgotten, Ripper," he says quietly.

"But forgiven," Giles amends, searching his friend's eyes in concern.

"Until the world ends."

Giles nods and sadly watches Ethan walk out the door. They've made their peace and somehow he knows their paths won't cross again. As he prepares to leave, he notices the strangeness of the coin on the table and picks it up. It's a Roman Denarius with the two heads of Janus on one side and the goddess Diana on the other, and he understands now what Ethan has known and fought so hard against all along: that Giles was never his. Chaos can't change destiny. It can only delay it a while.

Placing the coin in his pocket, Giles feels warmer. The light streaming through the great windows is less brash. He has a renewed purpose and he needs to research how to heal the connection between Buffy and himself. He's the Watcher. But first, he needs to feel more like Giles. Buffy's Giles. He closes the door behind him and steps into the busy Camden street.

7


End file.
